Royal Monastery of El Escorial + Toledo Half Day Afternoon Tour

Although it is essentially 2 separate trips undertaken in one day, a long day, we enjoyed the day very much and felt it well worth it. We were blessed with beautiful weather and saw El Escorial at it's very best. A really interesting building being both a palace and a church. There are some lovely original paintings that have not yet been removed, I am thinking particularly of a stunning Titian in a small chapel. I found the Royal Family's apartments especially interesting. The Valley of the Fallen was a revelation, especially the church, I felt I was walking through the Channel Tunnel! It is beautifully situated with a panoramic view. Toledo is not to be missed, a lovely old town with narrow steep streets and lots of interesting buildings. There is a wonderful El Greco painted on a church wall. We had a different guide for each trip. I would like to mention the gentleman who led the Toledo trip, Manuel, he was knowledgeable and good humoured and was especially helpful and attentive to all.

Guide was very well informed. Bus trips were comfortable. Opted for lunch included and it was delicious.

The morning started off poorly. We were supposed to meet at the Julia travel office in Madrid by 7am. We were there at 6:45. We were a party of 3 with a senior citizen. There were staff inside the office, but they would have rather we waited outside in the cold and in the dark. They simply refused to let us warm up in their office. We really didnt understand why as we had to be leaving their office 15 minutes later. The morning tours at El Escorial Monastery started OK. The female guide made an effort to explain things in English despite having a predominately Spanish speaking tour group. The lunch included in between the tours was actually quite good. There we met another senior couple from Venezuela who were kind enough to translate on our behalf. The gentlemen was 87 years old. The afternoon tour at Toledo was when it all fell apart. This guide was different than during the morning tour. Whilst still having a predominately Spanish speaking tour group, when explaining things, he almost never translated anything back into English. The task was left to the Venezuelan gentlemen to explain to us what was said. But this isnt the worst of it. Whilst walking around in Toledo, the guide would walk quickly from point to point. At this time I had 2 seniors with me. My own 68 year old mother, and the 87 year old gentlemen. The guide would be rushing us, and at one point went on ahead and left the group of 5 of us behind. Only after 15 minutes he came back to look for us when he walked ahead with the rest of the group back towards the bus. Come on, you know you have a couple of seniors in tow, at least slow down a bit for them. If we cant make it to the metal carving factory then so be it. Although I had a good experience with Julia tour services in Barcelona, their Madrid personnel were down right unprofessional. I really dont remember the guides name who took us to Toledo, but Viator really needs to vet their tour operators a little better.

The trip was amazing, I liked it very much and the guide was very good. Really I enjoyed this day. but Toledo part was with limited time that we didn't take our time to enjoy this amazing city.